Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.”
One reason, no doubt, why Ezra is here most particular in the register of the tribe of Judah is because it was that tribe which, with its appendages, Simeon, Benjamin, and Levi, made up the kingdom of Judah, which not only long survived the other tribes in Canaan, but in process of time, now when this was written, returned out of captivity, when the generality...
Commenting on 1 Chronicles 4:1-10
And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren,.... The Targum adds,"and wiser in the law than his brethren;''or he might be a man of great wealth and riches, or of great strength and courage, all which make a man honourable; or he may be so called, because a praying man, as follows, a man of devotion and religion, a man of God, see Sa1 9:6...
OF JABEZ, AND HIS PRAYER. (Ch1 4:9-20) Jabez--was, as many think, the son of Coz, or Kenaz, and is here eulogized for his sincere and fervent piety, as well, perhaps, as for some public and patriotic works which he performed.